In 1974, photographer Constantine Manos spent nine months taking thousands of photos of people and neighborhoods across Boston.
From the Puerto Rican Day Parade to a practice room at Roxbury’s Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, Manos captured the city in a way that not only celebrated the diversity of the people who called it home but also highlighted some of the racial and economic tensions that existed.
Some of his photographs were featured in an exhibit at the Prudential Center that opened in 1975 called “Where’s Boston?” It was part of the city’s bicentennial celebration.
Boston Athenaeum curator Lauren Graves says Manos’s photographs, some of which were published in a book titled “The Bostonians” provide a unique look into the city’s recent past. “He used a Leica camera that has a 35 mm lens,” said Graves, “so, he was really able to capture instantaneous moments in his frames. Everything is candid, nothing is posed, and there’s a sort of intimacy and distance at the same time.”
The photographs will be the focus of a 2026 summer exhibition at the Boston Athenaeum. “ I was so attracted to the images because they’re so vibrant and dynamic,” Graves said. “We see so many different parts of Boston represented and it’s a really beautiful time capsule of the city but it also feels timeless in a sense.”
Boston has undergone many changes in the 50 years since Manos took the photographs. Neighborhoods have changed, demographics have shifted, and buildings have been torn down with new developments erected in their place. Graves wants to use the photos to go a little deeper when thinking about the city’s identity.
“These photographs taken 50 years ago, how do they inform what we think about Boston today and what we want for the future of the city?”
The photographs are only one portion of the forthcoming exhibition. Inspired by an exhibit she saw at the Chicago Public Library, Graves wants to “try to identify people in the photographs or their families. And then record, if folks are willing, their oral histories.” The goal is to understand how these people ended up where they were in 1974 when Manos took the photos and their experiences in Boston over the past 50 years.
Graves and the Athenaeum have spent months leading an initiative to find some of the people Manos captured. They’ve popped up at public libraries and organizations across Boston, including South Boston and Dorchester, and displayed the photos in the hopes that others will recognize someone.
Many people who see the photos comment on the architecture or point out and name old buildings and streets. At a pop-up in South Boston, a woman recognized and identified two people in one of Manos’s photographs of a rally at City Hall.
Beyond the pop-ups, Graves and the Athenaeum also reached out to various cultural societies and groups, like the South End and Roxbury Historical Societies. They’ve posted some of the photographs on Facebook. Since the photos were taken 50 years ago, it can be difficult to find folks who are still living who can remember or identify others.
“We’ve identified by name about 14 or so people,” said Graves. “ The first person that reached out was Carolyn Moran about a photograph of her and her mother and grandmother. It’s on a street in Southie, right before a baptism.” The Moran family remembered Manos and relayed to Graves that he was invited to the baptism reception, describing him as a lovely man who “enjoyed the spinach pie.”
Other photos include identifiable places like the Beth Pinchas Chassidic Center in Brookline. Graves was able to reach out to the center and sent a Manos photo of a young boy with his father. The center helped identify the boy as Rabbi Naftali Brawer, who is now the executive director of Hillel at Tufts University. “The project has been full of these really lovely kismet kind of moments,” Graves said.
Providing additional historic context is pertinent to the exhibition, which is why Graves is hoping to collect up to 10 oral histories, either from people in the photographs or those who can speak to what was captured. “For example, there’s a photograph of a fireman after putting out a blaze on Symphony Street in the Fenway neighborhood,” Graves said. “At that time, there was arson for profit going on.”
Landlords setting their own properties ablaze to collect insurance money was prolific in the 1970s in areas like Dorchester and Roxbury. Community organizations mobilized to combat such incidents. To get more of that history, Graves is speaking with some of those people involved with pushing back against arson for profit. “This photograph that seems somewhat innocuous that you wouldn’t necessarily think of has this deeper history, if you continue to look.”
The oral histories will be archived on the Boston Athenaeum’s website and some will be included in the 2026 exhibition. Once the exhibition is up, Graves hopes that visitors are able to continue to identify people in the photographs. “Even though the show will be up, it doesn’t mean that we’ll stop this exercise of collecting oral histories.”
While “Where’s Boston?” happened 50 years ago, the effort to not only identify people but also provide more nuanced local histories will help illustrate a more complete picture of where Boston is today.
“I hope that when people come in to see the exhibition, that they feel a stronger connection to the city,” said Graves. “And that maybe that makes people feel better connected to our city and to the past.”
Editor’s note: This story, published on Aug. 14 by WBUR, is an excerpt from WBUR’s weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. The Reporter and WBUR share content through a media partnership.
